The house was crammed and jammed with our friends; and Dick, of course, put ducats in his purse." [Illustration: DANIEL EMMETT.] Emmett, describing this scene, places the time "in the spring of 1843," and says that they were all of them "end men, and all interlocutors." They sang songs, played their instruments, danced jigs, singly and doubly, and "did 'The Essence of Old Virginia' and the 'Lucy Long Walk Around.'" Emmett remained upon the minstrel stage for many years; he was a member of the Bryant troupe from 1858 to 1865, and he was the composer of many popular songs, including "Old Dan Tucker," "Boatman's Dance," "Walk Along, John," "Early in the Mornin'," and, according to some authorities, he was the author of "Dixie," which afterwards became the war-song of the South. [Illustration: CHARLES WHITE.] Mr. White, according to a biographical sketch published in the New York _Clipper_, was born in 1821. He played the accordion--when he was too young to be held responsible for the offence--at Thalian Hall, in Grand Street, New York, as long ago as 1843, and the next year organized what he called "'The Kitchen Minstrels' on the second floor of the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. The first floor was occupied by Tiffany, Young & Ellis, jewellers; the third by the renowned Ottignon as a gymnasium. Here, where the venerable Palmo had introduced to delighted audiences the Italian opera, and regaled them with fragrant Mocha coffee handed around by obsequious waiters, he first came most prominently before the public.... In 1846 he opened the Melodeon at 53 Bowery." Here, as usual, there is a decided confusion of dates and of facts. _Valentine's Manual_ for 1865 says, "Palmo's cafe, on the corner of Reade Street and Broadway, was a popular resort from 1835 to 1840, at which later period he abandoned his former occupation and erected the opera-house in Chambers Street, afterwards Burton's Theatre." Joseph N. Ireland, in his _Records of the New York Stage_, published in 1867, says--and Mr. Ireland is usually correct--"The fourth attempt to introduce the Italian opera in New York, and the second to give it an individual local habitation, was this season [1843-44], made by Ferdinand Palmo, on the site long previously occupied by Stoppani's Arcade Baths, in Chambers Street (Nos. 39 and 41), and nearly opposite the centre of the building on the north end of the Park originally erected for the city almshouse, and afterwards used for various public offices.... Signor Palmo had been a popular and successful _restaurateur_ in Broadway between the hospital and Duane Street.... Palmo's Opera-house was first opened by its proprietor on the 3d of February, 1844"; while Charles T. Cook, of Tiffany & Co., who has been connected with that house for over forty years, shows by its records that Tiffany, Young & Ellis did not move to 271 Broadway, on the southwest corner of Chambers Street, until 1847, when they occupied the second floor as well as the first.